Washington D.C. public schools have the largest achievement gap between black and white students among the nation’s major urban school systems

The District also has the widest achievement gap between white and Hispanic students, a federal study has found, compared with results from other large systems and the national average. The study is based on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, federal reading and math exams taken this year by fourth- and eighth-graders across the country. The tests are the only continuing and nationally representative assessment of what students know. In reading and math, the gaps in scores between black and white students were widest in D.C. schools compared with those in 20 other urban systems, including New York, Los Angeles and Miami. On the fourth-grade math test, for example, black students in the District scored an average of 212 points out of a possible 500, and their white classmates averaged 272. That 60-point difference is more than twice the national achievement gap for that test. The achievement gap has been a stubborn problem and of growing concern among educators, policymakers and civic leaders. With enactment of the No Child Left Behind law in 2002, the federal government made closing the gap a priority and a reason for increased accountability in public education. Many strategies have been deployed by schools across the country to attack the gap, but few have resulted in substantial progress. All the cities analyzed for racial and ethnic performance gaps found differences between whites and blacks and between whites and Hispanics. There are 46,191 students in the District’s public schools, with about 79% African American, 12% Hispanic, 7% white and 2% self-declared “other.”